Addicted To Disorder

Americans like illegal immigration as much as a drug addict likes drugs.

Ian Roberts, illegal immigrant, criminal, and the perfect representative for the public school system.

A truly insane story out of Des Moines, Iowa - this is Ian Roberts, a Guayanese national who was arrested, among many things, as you’ll see, by ICE for being in the country illegally. At the time of his arrest, he was Superintendent for the Des Moines Independent Community School District. An illegal immigrant was working in not only a government position, but he had a history that should’ve flat-out disqualified him from such a sensitive position.

Here’s YouTuber Amala Ekpunobi’s excellent rundown of the affair, if you’d rather watch/listen to an attractive young woman and move on instead of reading some anonymous man’s rantings (I won’t hold it against you):

But if you do prefer an anonymous man’s written rantings over a visual presentation, read on. Here’s a summary of the case from NewsNation Now [bold mine]:

U.S. immigration officials have said Ian Roberts, a Guyana native, was in the U.S. illegally and had no work authorization. Federal prosecutors charged Roberts on Thursday with possessing four firearms while in the U.S. illegally, including one authorities said was wrapped in a towel inside the Jeep Cherokee he was driving when agents pulled him over, according to court filings.

According to Justice Department documents, Roberts filed for permanent resident status three times and was denied in each instance. The department also alleges Roberts had not had authorization to work in the U.S. since 2020. He, according to the department, was ordered to be removed from the country in May of 2024.

In other words, even the Biden administration decided he shouldn’t be in the country any longer. All the while, they were bringing in many thousands more into the country, proving that even immigrants aren’t exempt from the Great Replacement. By the way, if the order to be removed was issued in May 2024, why did it take 16 months for it to be executed? It wasn’t like Roberts was hard to find. Something to think about.

It gets even crazier:

- He had thousands of dollars in cash, a firearm and a knife on him
- He lied about his education, “His official bios says he completed programs at Morgan State. But Morgan State tells us no. Quote, Ian Roberts did not receive any degree or certificate from Morgan State University.”
- He went by Doctor, he never got a Doctorate degree
- He’s an illegal but has a drivers license, is registered to vote and a voting record
- He refused to answer where he was born, his country of origin
- He used multiple birthdays in multiple states

His entire profile is a lie. His citizenship is fake, his credentials are fake, his entire identity is potentially fake. What was he doing working for a school district as superintendent? How badly does the system have to fail for this to happen? Or did the system fail at all?

And yes, Roberts, an illegal immigrant, was registered to vote! Remember when we were told voter fraud was just another one of President Donald Trump’s lies and nothing worth being concerned about?

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The next time you hear Democrats oppose voter ID laws, remember that there’s only one argument for doing so: to allow anyone, illegal migrants included, to vote. It’s only honest to note that voter ID laws might not have been able to stop him, since apparently nobody could or would verify the veracity of his identity, but this only proves just how negligent the U.S. has been at enforcing its laws at all levels of government, and isn’t an argument against voter ID. Voter fraud may also be a statistically insignificant problem and not the reason why Donald Trump lost re-election in 2020, but to act like it doesn’t happen at all, as Democrats insist, is dishonest. It’s not rampant as the Right suggests, but it’s hardly uncommon as the Left suggests. Either way, illegals shouldn’t be voting, and the fact that anyone would have a problem with that statement is dumbfounding.

Since his arrest, there has been a turn in the case, as the Des Moines Independent School District desperately attempts to put daylight between them and their once-prized pick:

Federal authorities on Friday said the superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district had a history of criminal charges before his arrest by immigration agents last week, which shocked the community and prompted the school board to sue the consulting company it hired to vet candidates.

Des Moines Public Schools hired Ian Roberts in 2023 to lead its district of about 30,000 students over two years ago, but federal authorities said the Guyana native was in the U.S. illegally and has not had work authorization for several years. Officials on Friday provided a list of criminal charges in Roberts’ record, including drug possession and intent to sell in 1996 and weapons charges in 2020 and 2022.

But [bold mine]:

Roberts pleaded guilty to the 2022 weapons charge — a minor infraction for unlawfully possessing a loaded hunting rifle in a vehicle — and the district was aware of that early on. Federal officials did not specify the outcome of the 1996 or 2020 charges.

In fact, Roberts’ criminal history is so extensive, it seems hard to believe the decision to hire him wasn’t done so without foreknowledge:

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But yeah, we all make mistakes, right? All Americans have criminal histories as extensive, no? You haven’t lived until you’ve been charged with drug possession with intent to distribute. And even if we didn’t, it’s because some of us are more privileged than others, yeah? All the stupid leftist narratives come to mind, reading Roberts’ jacket.

Furthermore:

Dated February 2023, the resume includes an entry that Roberts earned a doctorate degree from Morgan State University in 2007, a claim found to be false during a background check by search firm JG Consulting.

Although Roberts was enrolled in that doctorate program from 2002 to 2007, the school’s public relations office confirmed that he didn’t receive that degree.

The district said the full school board only saw a resume that was revised to indicate he had not completed his dissertation, which is necessary for the doctorate. But the board did have access to the background check alerting members to the initial variance.

If the school district was aware of Roberts’ criminal history and falsification of professional qualifications, but hired him anyway, shame on them. The fact that he had such an extensive criminal history to begin with should’ve undeniably disqualified him. Drug and weapons-related charges are serious, and generally impedes hiring for gainful employment, to say nothing of government employment. I have a family member who once had to pay to have a DUI expunged from their record so they could work at a financial company. Roberts, meanwhile, got a $270,000 per year job without any of his criminal history being expunged from his record. I get that life isn’t fair, but this is well beyond unfair.

So, again, why did the district hire him? You wouldn’t be cynical for assuming the worst - it’s because he was Black and a foreigner. This was a DEI hire. Why else risk hiring a complete fraud with such an extensive criminal history? A White American native would’ve never been hired under similar circumstances.

As civil liberties attorney Laura Powell reports:

The Federalist uncovered that Des Moines Public Schools paid $83,901 to a nonprofit called New Leaders to help them design an illegal race-based hiring program. Ian Roberts appears on the New Leaders website as an alum of their program.

I noticed that Roberts is featured alongside Michael Hinojosa in a 2022 post on the New Leaders blog. Hinojosa was a superintendent in Dallas, but—more importantly to our story—he was the principal consultant for the JG Consulting team that got Roberts the superintendent position.

I fail to see how giving taxpayer money to these grifters helps students of color in Des Moines, which was supposed to be the board’s goal.

The school board which hired him was all-female, and while mostly White, it can be reasonably assumed their partisan allegiance was to the Democratic Party. Not everything’s a big mystery and sometimes, your worst assumptions are correct. In fact, a board member responded to concerns from a citizen who witnessed Roberts speeding by expressing sympathy for him because of his “flashy clothes” and because he’s “of color in Iowa.” Really.

Americans have been successfully psy-opped into believing that DEI isn’t a big deal, it’s only bigoted White right-wingers who are getting upset about people who don’t look like them getting a leg up on life. But not only does this incident out of Iowa prove that DEI is a major problem, leading decision-makers at all levels to make insanely delusional choices, it also proves that the people responsible for implementing its policies are true believers.

The Roberts case is a story with literally no end, a bottomless pit of absurdity and stupidity. If anyone thinks he was doing good work while he was superintendent (after all, he’s an immigrant and person of color), they’re so very, very wrong:

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But wait - there’s more! From the Washington Examiner:

By the end of July, the board got some surprising news about their new superintendent. He had been named in a $250,000 settlement with an ex-employee at his previous job as head of the Millcreek Township School District in Pennsylvania. Melody Ellington, the Pennsylvania district’s human resources director under Roberts, claimed she had been subjected to “unlawful treatment.” The nature of that treatment was not revealed. Roberts said he could not comment on a confidential personnel issue, but he insisted the problem “had absolutely nothing to do with me leaving Millcreek and coming to Des Moines.”

Do you get it now? This is why we enforce immigration laws. Doing so solves a lot of problems up front by not allowing such problematic people into the country in the first place. I can’t tell you how many times I pitch this argument to my fellow Americans and they still don’t get it. Roberts does have his defenders, after all, despite his record. They think it’s worth it to give everyone who comes here a chance to screw it all up since America’s full of screw-ups anyway. What’s millions more?

I personally consider it beneath me to speak ill of my countrymen. But the fact is, too many Americans view immigration as though it were a game show, the objective being to remain in the country undetected, flouting the rules for as long as possible, and if you manage to stay long enough, you win! The prize being you get to stay in the country as long as you wish, continuing to flout the rules while also claiming to be “living in fear,” and having the entire country comfort you with boundless empathy.

The case of Ian Roberts is exactly what you get when you let millions enter the country illegally. The only reason he got away with it for as long as he did is because he’s one of those many millions and resources for dealing with illegal immigration are limited, to say nothing of the bureaucracy running the entire immigration law enforcement apparatus. ICE, for one, has only 21,800-some employees, and not all of them are directly involved in enforcement. You can easily see the challenge of enforcing immigration law.

Of course, most Americans, in their cynicism, demoralization, or even outright contempt for their country, have concluded it’s simply not worth it to enforce immigration law. They’d probably claim someone like Ian Roberts is the exception, not the rule, and his actions cannot be used to taint the honor of the day laborer hanging out in front of Home Depot, hoping for an opportunity to make $50 that day. Most Americans still harbor tremendous sympathy for immigrants, regardless of legal status, and apparently consider following the rules optional, contingent on ability and means - if you can afford to follow the rules, you must. If you cannot afford to follow the rules, if you manage to find some other way into the country, more power to you.

But the line between “good” immigrants and “bad” immigrants doesn’t begin and end at the boundary of a Home Depot parking lot. Just because they’re “just” looking for work doesn’t mean they’re not criminals - quite the opposite, in fact. Nor is immigration law some frivolous formality. If it isn’t worth it to enforce immigration law, it’s not worth it to have them in the first place. But not even most liberals would argue in favor of abolishing immigration laws altogether, because it’s an indefensible position, and they know it.

Even those who claim to be for fixing illegal immigration aren’t in favor of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign:

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Granting that there’s plenty of room for improvement in the manner in which deportation operations are conducted, much of the criticisms amount to an excuse for doing nothing. Even Americans who want to see something done about illegal immigration still don’t see it as urgent of an issue to take the sort of drastic measures the Trump administration has resorted to. They may have a point, but the U.S. also past the point where doing things the easy way is viable. That ended 11 million illegal immigrants ago. At that scale of a problem, trying to do things the “humane” way amounts to capitulation.

The numbers simply don’t allow for effective targeted enforcement. No, we don’t have the resources to conduct truly mass deportations, at least not without getting the military involved. But we do have the resources to conduct focused large-scale sweeps. At the risk of getting citizens and other innocents involved, this is the only way to grab large numbers of illegals at once. And yes, being in the country illegally is a crime, even if no other crimes have been committed. Besides, how would we know if any other crimes have been committed until we catch them? Otherwise, we’re just waiting for them to commit even more crimes, including serious ones, before we catch them. That’s not a plan. That’s negligence. That’s surrender.

But hey, we’re supposed to be a democracy, right? As much as I think the Trump administration should keep up the pressure, I also believe, at a some point, you’re going to pay a price if you act too much against public sentiment, which currently opposes the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The reality is that Americans just don’t see it the way Trump or at least a third of the country does on the issue. Who knows if they ever will? This isn’t Europe, where Americans are forced to live in close proximity to thousands of Third World migrants. There’s plenty of room in America to distance yourself from the downsides of immigration, which is why Americans remain so overall liberal in their attitudes on it.

I get a lot of hate from those to the right of me for pointing this out, but the fact is, immigration isn’t a winning issue at the moment. It’s a winning issue among conservatives, for sure, but you cannot run a country appealing only to a third of the country. As liberal as Americans can be on the matter, it’s also not an issue which keeps them up at night, which makes it all the more important to keep it off the radar. The media can turn it into a cause célèbre in an instant; the images coming out of the various enforcement operations across the country have not helped the Trump administration’s cause.

For now, if Trump doesn’t want immigration to hurt him politically, he must keep it off the public radar. As many liberals pointed out, President Barack Obama deported millions during his presidency without raising public rancor:

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Liberals - who we know aren’t in favor of deportations, period - use the data to argue that Obama had a more effective anti-illegal immigration policy. But three million over eight years is, while not nothing, hardly effective, given the number of illegals in the country and continued entering the country during that time. There’s a reason why nobody remembers Obama as the “Deporter-in-Chief.” It’s yet another argument for doing something to keep up appearances while meaningfully doing nothing. It does, however, put into stark relief just how much effort is required to get rid of large numbers of people from the country. It also proves the difficulty in trying to do anything meaningful about immigration without raising public ire.

Again, none of this is an argument for doing nothing. This is just the reality of the situation. If Trump believes the issue is important enough to risk everything else, I applaud him for sticking to his convictions. But nobody should be surprised if both he and the Right as a whole pay a price for it in the long run. If that’s the price, so be it. We just cannot expect Americans to thank us for it.

The Problem Nobody Wants To Fix

Let’s explore more specifically the Trump administration’s anti-crime and anti-illegal immigration efforts in Blue cities. These efforts have ran into legal roadblocks in addition to public opposition, including protests in cities like Chicago and Portland. Trump’s attempts to deploy the National Guard to support law enforcement operations are being evaluated by the courts, and the conduct of law enforcement officers has come under scrutiny.

Instead of doing a deep-drive analysis on this topic, I’m just going to share my thoughts and concerns on these operations. First, as a federalist, I’m concerned about the separation of powers, and I’m not a fan of federal authority superseding state and local authority. I don’t think it worth it to fight governors and mayors over it, even if only in a figurative sense, as it’s just a waste of money, time, and bandwidth, for what’s likely to be very little to be gained in the end.

I think Trump is committing a rather stupid error in focusing so heavily on Democrat-run cities in Democrat-run states, instead of going after Democrat-run cities in Republican-governed states, which happen to be America’s most dangerous cities to begin with. Had he pursued this approach, not only would he be dealing with more compliant state governments, he’d also have a strong opportunity to reverse the narrative from the Left about how Red states are more violent than Blue cities. This is a lie by omission; it’s Blue cities within Red states which are violent, and these cities have a preponderance of Blacks. That and state governments have far more leverage over city governments than the federal government has over either. But again, Trump doesn’t understand governance nor politics all that well.

This is why I keep saying that Trump isn’t an astute politician. At best, he has a very rudimentary understanding of politics in America, let alone anywhere, and is an amateur playing an utterly ruthless, conniving game. He overestimates the significance of the Blue state-Red state divide, when things are more complicated than that. Trump seems to think he can bring the Left to heel by confronting them directly in the manner he’s implementing, but like the tariffs, Trump is likely to cave, as he so often does, in the face of continued pressure. He’s, at the end of the day, a showman, first and foremost, and over-emphasizes the significance of the visual spectacle.

I’m also wary about the way the military is being caught up in the disputes. It’s not that I think civil-military relations are in danger or that the military is going to be used in an unjust, tyrannical manner. My concern is that the military is going to be placed into a situation where they could potentially need to make decisions with far-reaching consequences, especially if the Left chooses to escalate their opposition. The recent sniper attack on an ICE facility shows there are insurgents among us. If troops are exposed to what leaders consider an unacceptable level of risk, it may set off an escalation spiral or military leaders may push back against deploying them for law enforcement purposes.

On the other hand, the reason why Blue cities and states are being singled out is quite simple: they’re bad at dealing with crime. It’s clear Democratic leaders aren’t interested in making America safe at all, a narrative that’s slowly, albeit painfully, becoming more mainstream. If the state and local governments are doing something that’s putting their citizens at risk, there exists a precedent, how ever flawed it may be, for federal authorities to intervene.

Personally, I think Blue cities and Blue states should be made to stew in their own mess. I also don’t think the situation is anywhere near as urgent as it needs to be where Trump can justify doing things like invoking the Insurrection Act, which the president has suggested he might need to do. I honestly doubt Trump will go this far - he caves far more than his supporters like to admit - but if he’s actually considering it, it’s worth remembering he didn’t do it in June 2020, when an insurrection was truly underway in America. It’s unlikely he’s going to have any support for it today.

If all of Trump’s high-risk maneuvers do end up reducing crime without major bloodshed or controversy, however, then the results will be tough to argue against, and the Left will be… left with egg on their faces. At least, that’s the way it should be. Even the Left understands, deep down inside, that low crime is better than high crime, less illegal immigration is better than more illegal immigration, which is why they’ve focused on downplaying the severity of these problems, not arguing in favor of them. My hope is that Trump is successful in his efforts, it’s just that I’m not confident he will be.

Putting aside the legal and political hurdles, America can take internal threats like crime and insurgency as seriously as we’d like, but as is the case with the legal and political dimension, tackling these challenges effectively, without triggering more problems in the process, is a different challenge altogether.

I’ll allow geopolitical analyst Sumantra Maitra to speak for me on this, as he so often does (video set to begin on his commentary):

If you didn’t watch the video, the main part of Maitra’s commentary I want to highlight is that dealing with crime or other internal threats is a matter of intelligence. Tacking domestic insurgents like Antifa or even illegal immigration without running into problems the Trump administration is dealing with requires lots of high-quality intelligence. It’s not enough to put hundreds of cops, federal agents, and troops onto the streets. This might be effective at first, but eventually, the enemy adapts, and the efforts run into the point of diminishing returns. Long term, a more deft hand is required.

I often point to The Troubles of Northern Ireland as an example. British troops in the streets, bombings, mass protests, these constituted the public face of the war. But the real war was waged in the shadows, out of public sight. It’s what was done behind closed doors which really put a dent into the IRA’s efforts, what allowed the conflict to be a manageable crisis for Britain. The same can be said about other insurgencies throughout the world.

Whether the Trump administration wants to admit it or not, eventually, these high-profile enforcement operations will exceed their point of diminishing returns and a much lower-profile will need to be assumed. But this doesn’t mean the fight against illegal immigration and domestic insurgency needs to end. It just means a new, potentially more effective, approach will need to be adopted. When it comes to Antifa, specifically, the Trump administration cannot afford to wait too long in adopting this new approach, because it’s a decentralized movement and cannot be combatted through traditional means.

The second point Maitra makes is that only the federal government possesses the ability and resources to tackle a mission like this. State and local law enforcement agencies, even the larger ones, don’t. These lower-level agencies constantly struggle to stop gangs and other criminal rings in their cities and are often left resorting to simply managing the problem instead of actually defeating it. So the Trump administration’s employment of federal law enforcement agencies is the right move, because illegal immigration and domestic political extremist groups aren’t only national problems, they’re also precisely the kind of threat federal agencies were specifically developed to combat, while state and local law enforcement agencies are intended for general policing within specific geographic jurisdictions.

The problem, of course, as Maitra also points out, is that agencies like the FBI have become so politically compromised over the years, that they cannot be relied upon to handle these so very important missions without extensive reform. The FBI has always been an domestic intelligence and internal security agency, but recently, it’s become so exclusively for the Democratic Party. Once an institution becomes politically compromised, it’s nearly impossible to reform. It needs to be dissolved and a new agency stood up in its place. The KGB is the keystone example of this, but there are others. Countries that were once under authoritarian governance, but then became democratic, often dismantle agencies associated with the prior regime and establish new ones in their place.

But maybe that’s just it - this post-1945 American political order needs to collapse first before any reform can take place. When that’ll happen is anyone’s guess.

Americans Have An Attitude Problem

One of most illuminating - and disheartening - revelations for me witnessing my great country’s decline is how entrenched the culture of disorder is in the United States. You hear people describe the country as a “nation of laws,” but in reality, most Americans have not only built an entire way of life around chaos, they actually don’t mind it, and some even enjoy it. As long as it doesn’t affect them directly, of course.

It calls to mind something Canadian wrestler Bret “The Hitman” Hart observed about Americans almost 30 years ago. Just start playing the video to hear his relevant commentary:

This might be kayfabe. This might be a “worked shoot.” But are his observations wrong?

How this came to be and why is a long story. What matters now is that it is and will remain a part of our culture for the years to come. This country is much too addicted to comfort and too ideologically indoctrinated to think straight about matters. I don’t think foreigners are entirely wrong when they view America as a chaotic, out-of-control place. I, too, am always a little taken aback when returning home from overseas, especially Europe. The Old World has lots of problems, but the ambient condition is still order, whereas in America, the ambient condition often seems chaotic.

A big theme of my writing is this: manage your expectations. This is directed more at the Right, of course. Too often, they get caught up in the moment and start thinking something dramatic is going to happen, when so often Nothing Ever Happens. We can fight the good fight all we’d like, but it’s an uphill battle. If it wasn’t, we probably wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today. Our politics would be a lot saner, for one.

Culture needs to change, too. As Shahib Bolsen observed, when culture and the establishment order’s sentiments are in alignment, there’s no risk of revolution. As long as Americans remain supportive and sympathetic towards immigrants, the room for drastic changes is minimal.

Country music, long considered the one cultural arena the Right could lay claim to, saw one of its biggest stars recently voice sympathy for illegal immigrants:

Grammy Award-winning Country Music singer Zach Bryan releases a new song called “Bad News,” where he bashes federal ICE agents. Bryan claims that the Red, White, and Blue is “Fading”

“And ICE is gonna come, bust down your door—The fading of the red, white, and blue”

You can’t save a country with a culture that exalts disorder and lawlessness. There’s also never going to be a civil war or revolution as long as even Red American culture propagates far-left, Regime values.

In a closing thought, Americans are arguably the most wonderful people on the planet because we believe in fair play like no other. It’s what makes us such wonderful people that we’re also so vulnerable to subversion. What’s happening with illegal immigration is that definition of fair play being stretched to the absurdist of logical limits. As long as Americans remain addicted to comfort and that comfort can be provisioned, I’d expect little to change. It’s easy to be generous when you have little to worry about, after all.

Americans are suffering from addiction. Most drug users are aware the substances they’re putting into their bodies are bad for them. It’s just that they’ve created a need for it through usage alone. It’s the same thing with illegal immigration. Americans like illegal immigration as much as a drug addict likes drugs. They just know nothing else, they cannot imagine a life without it. Unfortunately, getting an addict off drugs isn’t only difficult, it’s also an excruciating process that can kill them. Nobody can force them to quit using, either. The same thing goes for immigration: Americans must decide when they’ve had enough. Nobody, not Trump, not me, can make up their minds for them.

That’s all for today, folks. What do you think? Should the Ian Roberts case change the minds of Americans on immigration? Or will this story fade into the ether like any other. What’s the future of the issue in America? Will Americans ever turn decisively against immigration? If so, how and when?

Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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